Read The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor (The Walking Dead Series) for Free Online

out of the cargo hold next to her.
    “Nag, nag, nag,” the young man says with a rascally smirk. A boyish twenty-two, with long, dark, espresso-brown curls, Austin Ballard has deep-set eyes that sparkle with mischief. In his leather bomber jacket and multiple strands of bling around his neck, he affects the air of a second-tier rock star, an incorrigible bad boy. “How the hell do you stand it, Dave?” he says.
    “Drink heavily and agree with everything she says,” David Stern cracks wise from behind Martinez. “Barbara, stop mothering the boy.”
    “He was trying to light up in here, for Chrissake,” Barbara Stern grumbles. “You want I should let him smoke and send us all to kingdom come?”
    “Okay, everybody, can it.” Martinez checks his ammo magazine. He’s all business, maybe even a little jittery. “We got a job to do. Y’all know the drill. Let’s get this done with a minimum of bullshit.”
    Martinez orders Lilly and David to get in back with the other two, and then leads Gus around to the cab.
    Lilly climbs up and into the rank atmosphere of the cargo hold. The airless chamber smells of old sweat, cordite, and must. A caged dome light shines down dully on shipping containers lined along either side of the corrugated floor. Lilly looks for a place to plant herself.
    “I saved a seat for ya,” Austin says to her with a lascivious little grin, patting the unoccupied trunk next to him. “C’mon, take a load off … I won’t bite.”
    Lilly rolls her eyes, lets out a sigh, and sits down next to the young man.
    “You keep your hands to yourself, Romeo,” Barbara Stern jokes from the opposite side of the gloomy enclosure. She sits on a low wooden crate next to David, who grins at the twosome across the cargo hold.
    “They do make a good pair, though, don’t they?” David says with a gleam in his eyes.
    “Oh please,” Lilly murmurs with mild disgust. The last thing she wants to do is get involved with a twenty-two-year-old, especially a kid as annoyingly flirty as Austin Ballard. Over the past three months—since he drifted into Woodbury from the north, arriving malnourished and dehydrated with a ragtag group of ten—he’s hit on just about every single woman not yet in menopause.
    If pressed, however, Lilly would have to concede that Austin Ballard is what her old friend Megan would call “easy on the eyes.” With his curly mane and long lashes, he could easily kindle Lilly’s lonely soul. Plus there seems to be more than meets the eye about the kid. Lilly has seen him in action. Underneath the pretty-boy looks and roguish charm lies a tough, plague-hardened young man who seems to be more than willing to put himself on the line for his fellow survivors.
    “Lilly likes to play hard to get,” Austin prods, still with that sideways grin. “But she’ll come around.”
    “Keep dreaming,” Lilly mutters as the truck vibrates and rumbles.
    The gears kick in, and the cargo hold shudders as the vehicle slowly pulls forward.
    Lilly hears a second engine—a big diesel—revving outside the hatch. Her stomach clenches slightly at the sound as she realizes that the exit is opening.
    *   *   *
    Martinez watches the semitrailer slowly backing away from the breach, its vertical stack spitting and spewing exhaust, opening up a twenty-five-foot gap in the barricade.
    The woods adjacent to Woodbury reveal themselves in the pale sun a hundred yards away. No walkers in sight. Yet. The sun, still low in the sky, streams through the distant trees in hazy motes, burning off the predawn fog.
    Pulling forward another twenty feet, Martinez brings the truck to a stop and rolls down his window. He peers up at two gunners perched on a cherry picker, which is pushed up against the corner of the wall. “Miller! Do me a favor, will ya?”
    One of the men—a skinny African American in an Atlanta Falcons jersey—leans over the edge. “You name it, boss.”
    “While we’re gone, keep the wall clear of